Australian dancer Tess Devine is increasingly finding herself in rooms far beyond those in which her training began. Across the past several years, the 19-year-old has built an impressive body of experience spanning Australian national tours, international competitions and conventions, assisting roles with leading choreographers from all over the world and professional performance opportunities in the United States. Recognition through major American dance platforms including Velocity and RADIX has accompanied that progression, while performing as a lead dancer for recording artist Khalid at the 2026 Velocity National Finals Gala in Las Vegas marked an important step into the professional commercial world. For Tess, each opportunity has built upon the one before it, transforming an early love of performance into an increasingly international career. “I’ve always loved performing and expressing myself through movement, but as I got older, dance became much more than something I enjoyed doing,” she says. “It became the career I knew I wanted to pursue.”
Much of Tess’s professional foundation has been established through Dance Force, where extensive training across multiple genres has placed her in contact with Australian and international teachers and choreographers. Nicole Wells has been particularly influential, mentoring Tess through a significant period of her development and teaching her about “professionalism, work ethic and what it actually takes to build a sustainable career in this industry.” Tess’s performance experience with Dance Force has been equally formative. As a soloist on its Australian National Tour and a featured soloist on the National Graduation Tour, she learnt that professional performance demands considerably more than the ability to execute choreography. Repeatedly performing across different venues taught her to maintain consistency while adapting to new stages and environments. “You have to be consistent, versatile, prepared, resilient and able to work as part of a team,” she explains, lessons that would become particularly valuable as her work began taking her internationally.
Tess’s growing profile within the American dance industry has developed over several years rather than through a single result. In 2024 she was named Senior Protégé Runner Up at RADIX Anaheim before being selected as a Senior Protégé finalist at the RADIX National Finals in Las Vegas. Her American achievements accelerated during 2025 when she was named Maximum Velocity Artist and received the highest-scoring senior solo at Velocity in Las Vegas, subsequently progressing to the Velocity National Finals where she won Maximum Velocity Artist PLUS. That same year she was a RADIX National Protégé Top 15 finalist and won Senior Protégé at RADIX Westminster. Returning to America in 2026, Tess continued that momentum, winning Senior Protégé at RADIX Provo and working as a Pro Assistant at Velocity in Layton, Utah. The significance of those results, Tess says, extends beyond the awards themselves. Being repeatedly recognised in unfamiliar international environments strengthened her confidence that she could enter rooms filled with dancers she had never trained alongside and “still trust what I had to offer.”
The progression also allowed Tess to establish relationships within the American industry and opened opportunities beyond competition. A particularly significant moment came at the 2026 Velocity National Finals Gala in Las Vegas, where Tess performed as a lead dancer for international recording artist Khalid. The opportunity developed through her involvement with Velocity, where faculty and the creative team had been able to observe not only Tess’s ability onstage, but how she worked during rehearsals, responded to direction and operated within a professional environment. “This is exactly what I want to be doing,” Tess remembers thinking. The experience required choreography to be learnt quickly, changes retained, staging and spacing understood and direction immediately applied, while still maintaining the performance quality expected onstage. For Tess, working within that environment represented an important movement from convention-based opportunities towards the professional commercial industry. “It reminded me how much I love large-scale live performance,” she says, “dancing on major artists tours is something I want to do for the rest of my career”.
Alongside these international experiences, Tess has continued to develop through her work with choreographers and industry professionals including Nicole Wells, Marko Panzic, Nika Kljun and Cassie Bartho. Being the lead dancer for internationally recognised choreographer Nika Kljun on her Australian tour was particularly influential because it gave Tess an opportunity to observe far more than choreography. She was able to watch how Kljun communicated, led a room and created an environment that inspired dancers while maintaining exacting professional standards. Working with a variety of choreographers has similarly taught Tess to respond to different creative languages rather than becoming comfortable within one particular style. “Working with different people teaches you not to become too attached to one way of moving,” she says. “It has encouraged me to remain adaptable while still developing my own identity as an artist.”
That adaptability is underpinned by unusually broad training. Tess’s experience spans contemporary, jazz, tap, musical theatre, commercial dance and choreography, with each discipline contributing something different to her development. Contemporary strengthened movement quality and emotional connection, jazz developed technique and performance, tap sharpened musicality and musical theatre developed character and storytelling. Commercial work has required Tess to draw those skills together and adapt them to the needs of different choreographers and artists. “I never want to walk into an audition and feel as though I can only do one thing,” she says. “I really value being the dancer who can adapt.”
It is a quality Tess believes Australian dancers bring particularly strongly to the international industry. Training across numerous genres from an early age is commonplace in Australia, creating dancers who are both technically grounded and versatile, while Australia’s geographic distance from major international entertainment centres can demand considerable initiative from those seeking careers abroad. “Dancers who want international careers often understand that they have to create opportunities for themselves,” Tess explains. Travelling internationally to train, perform and establish professional relationships requires commitment, but her experiences in America have also demonstrated the value of that Australian foundation. Tess found she could enter unfamiliar rooms and respond quickly to different choreographers, styles and expectations. At the same time, working internationally encouraged another stage in her artistic development. “Australian training gave me a strong foundation; America has encouraged me to think even more about what makes me distinctive as an artist.”
Her growing experience as an artist has provided another measure of Tess’s professional development. Being a pro assistant and leader for Kljun in Australia and with Velocity in the United States, Tess has begun viewing the studio from a perspective beyond her own performance. “You start noticing who might be struggling, who needs encouragement, where dancers are getting confused and how the teacher is communicating the material,” she says. “It has made me much more aware and generous as a dancer.” Having once been the younger dancer looking towards those onstage, Tess now recognises the influence a professional assistant or teacher can have and intends to continue teaching and mentoring as her professional career develops.
The relationships Tess has established through Velocity, RADIX and her wider international experiences have now positioned her for the next stage of that career. Rather than travelling to the United States solely for training and conventions, her focus is increasingly on professional employment across recording artist performances, live productions, music videos and world tours.
Importantly, Tess sees the progression of being an international artist as an extension of her Australian career rather than a reinvention of it. The technical breadth, work ethic and adaptability developed at home have already travelled with her into American rehearsal rooms and onto international stages. “I’m extremely proud of the training I’ve received in Australia,” she says, “and I want to take that foundation into the American industry rather than feeling like I need to become a completely different dancer.”
Over the next five years, Tess hopes to continue building upon the professional recognition and international relationships she has already established, working across artist tours, live television performances, award shows, music videos and other large-scale productions while continuing to develop as a choreographer, teacher and mentor. There is ambition in that picture, but increasingly there is experience behind it too. Tess has already discovered that some of her greatest development occurs when she enters a room without knowing exactly where she will stand within it. Now she wants to keep seeking those rooms. “Ultimately, I want the next five years to continue on this professional journey working as an international leading dancer,” she says, “Being an artist who is known not only for being versatile and hardworking, but also for being someone people genuinely enjoy having in the room.”